Mask of Night Read online

  “Here,” he said.

  “Where’s here?”

  “Christ Church, formerly Cardinal College and in between times King Henry the Eighth College. My room is on the second floor.”

  We groped our way up a dark staircase and I waited while he fumbled with a key. Then waited some more as he entered the room, found his tinder-box with practised hands and lit some candles. They were good candles, not tallow-y things. The room was warm from a coal fire which slumbered in the chimney.

  “Come in, Master Revill.”

  “Nicholas. Nick to my familiars.”

  He indicated a stool on the far side of a table which was scattered with books. I sat down and looked around. The walls were panelled. There was a feather bed in one corner. It was not even shared accommodation. Properly furnished, well lighted and heated, there was no hard lodging here.

  “Behold the scholar’s chamber,” said Sadler. “Is it what you expected?”

  “Something more . . . monastic perhaps.”

  “We’re not all cut out to be monks – even if they still existed.”

  “Cucullus non facit monachum,” I said, and immediately regretted it since I was only showing off, demonstrating that I too had a touch of the scholar, together with his Latin, in my veins.

  “‘The cowl does not make the monk.’ Appearances deceive. Too true,” said Sadler.

  I shivered for, across my mind’s eye, there flashed that scene in the alley from my first evening in Oxford. The troupe of hooded figures feeling their way down the blind path. I remembered an illustration I’d once seen in a book, of a line of monks, cowled and creeping along – not religious at all but sinister, as the picture was probably intended to be. That was what the figures had reminded me of.

  “Are you well, Nicholas?”

  “Yes. Something unpleasant just crossed my mind.”

  “Then this might help to get it out again.”

  William Sadler poured two glasses of wine and passed one across to me before sitting down at a stool on the opposite side of the table. Rather unceremoniously he shoved the books to the far edge, careless that a couple of them thudded on to the rush-strewn floor. By the candlelight I saw a man perhaps a little younger than me, clean-shaven with a thin mouth. So this was the husband-to-be, the man who wanted to marry Sarah Constant. Did he look like a bridegroom? Did he look smug or distracted or besotted? No, although he did seem content with himself.

  “It’s good sense to get off the streets when the bulldogs are prowling,” he said.

  “I didn’t see any dogs.”

  “The bulldogs are the gentlemen with staves. They keep order here by knocking student heads.”

  “How did the fight start?”

  I hadn’t expected him to be able to tell me but he claimed he’d been in on it from the beginning and gave me the story piecemeal.

  “It was all an inn-keeper’s fault. He’s an arrogant, sour fellow. Some friends and I disagreed with him over the quality of the wine he was providing us with. That was sour too. It didn’t compare with what we’d already drunk at the Bear and the Mitre.”

  I visualized a bunch of pissed, pot-valiant students strutting and staggering their way from inn to inn.

  “So the whole town went to war because you didn’t care for your drink?”

  “Not by our choice,” said William Sadler. “We didn’t start it. Any excuse will serve for those townsfolk though. In truth Master Davenant gave us some very hard words. We were in a cheerful mood and he was not.”

  “John Davenant at the Tavern?”

  “You’re already qualified to be a student here, Nicholas, since you are familiar with the inn-keepers of the town. Do you happen to know Davenant’s wife too?”

  “I saw her in the street recently.”

  “A fine piece.”

  “Was she part of the disagreement as well?”

  “Not directly. Though one of our group may have made a couple of comments about Jane Davenant which, ah, didn’t help matters,” conceded Sadler, putting his fingers to either side of his forehead in the sign of the cuckold’s horns. “But the real cause of the dispute was the quality of the man’s wine, not the calibre of his wife. Ha!”

  I must have looked sceptical because, with a grin, Sadler continued, “All right, I admit he might have been provoked by the way in which we returned his sour drink to him.”

  “How was that?”

  “By throwing it and the vessel in the direction of his head. But it fell far short and landed on the floor and did no harm to anyone.”

  I tried to laugh but not very hard. Something about the student’s manner – a kind of amused arrogance – was putting my hackles up. I wondered what Sarah Constant saw in him.

  “Master Davenant grew very passionate at that,” said Sadler, “and called several of his friends and neighbours together, and instructed one of them to go off and ring the bell of St Martin’s. He’s an influential man in Oxford with his eye set on becoming mayor, they say. As we were trying to make a peaceful exit we were set upon by the good citizens of this place. By that stage, of course, some more of our side had joined us and, well, you saw what followed.”

  Personally I was sorry that Mistress Root hadn’t found something harder than a dried fish with which to beat him about the head. Still, you can’t sit in a man’s chamber drinking his wine and utter such thoughts aloud. And I have to admit that I was a bit curious about William Sadler. How typical was he of the students at this university? My ideas of the lofty, self-denying nature of academic life were rapidly disappearing.

  “Aren’t you afraid of the consequences?”

  “This wasn’t a real battle, Nicholas. Nobody was killed like they were in the old days. It was just a skirmish, fought with loaves and fishes. A falling-out between town and gown over some spilt wine. Anyway, even if there is the prospect of trouble, it can always be . . . you know.”

  He rubbed his thumb and fingers together. To the other charges I was mentally laying up against William Sadler – arrogance, lack of respect for one’s elders, heavy drinking and riotousness – I added the accusation of wealth. I felt older than my years.

  Not greatly enjoying his company, I made to get up. Sadler’s arm shot across the table and grasped my wrist. In irritation, I shook it free.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to my inn.”

  “The streets will not be safe yet. The bulldogs will still be on the prowl. Besides, you haven’t finished your drink.”

  “I’m not so thirsty.”

  “We’ll teach you to drink deep before you depart.”

  This time I couldn’t help a half-smile in acknowledgement of the line (it is said by Hamlet to Horatio in WS’s play). Suiting the action to the word, Sadler fetched the flask from the sideboard and poured himself another drink.

  “Yes,” he said, “we may not be encouraged to see plays but that was a popular one here. Every student regards himself as Prince Hamlet on leave from Wittenberg, full of delicious melancholy.”

  “I thought you were forbidden to go to the theatre, you students,” I said.

  “A regulation more honoured in the breach than the observance.”

  “Yet you are permitted to stage your own pieces?”

  “Playing is an occasional recreation for a gentleman, but as a regular means of livelihood it is regarded with scorn. What use is it? What purpose does it serve?”

  I couldn’t tell if this was William Sadler’s own opinion or if he was merely passing on, in a slightly mocking fashion, the opinion of the university authorities. In any case it was a standard enough view.

  “What purpose does it serve?” I repeated. “Well, I understand that we’re here to bind up your wounds. I mean in the matter of – of a marriage.”

  “Oh that,” he said. “To tell you the truth, Nicholas, there’s no such great enmity now between the Sadler and Constant families. This whole business of putting on Romeo and Juliet is more Doctor Hugh Fern’s d
oing. He can’t resist seeing a problem where there is nothing much wrong, and then interfering. Am I meant to be identified with Romeo? Ha!”

  “Forgive me if I’m presuming,” I said, and not much concerned whether I was or not, “but I thought that this was a love match conducted in the teeth of opposition. I thought there was once a question of elopement.”

  “Elopement!” said William Sadler, awarding himself another glass of wine from the handy flask. “That was a day’s outing, a ten-mile ride to Woodstock! It set one or two tongues wagging and someone foolish like Mistress Root made a joke about us running away together. As for a love match, well, Sarah Constant is devoted to me. It runs in the family. Her cousin Susan was once . . . ”

  I waited but, having said so much, discretion or gallantry or something got the better of him and he abruptly changed the subject.

  “Anyway, what does it matter to you? You’re just players, after all, and we’re just your audience. What does it matter to you as long as the coin is good?”

  “One or two of our shareholders would agree with that,” I said.

  “And aren’t you players only here to escape the plague anyway?”

  “If so, I’m told it’s followed us to Oxford.”

  “True, a household has been affected below Folly Bridge, near this very place.”

  He said this without concern. Susan Constant had described him as careless. I wondered whether anything troubled him very much. I stood up before he could detain me any longer. He gestured towards the flask. Although there was no sign of drunkenness in his manner, he was – like many men who’ve sunk a few – evidently reluctant to be left to his own company.

  But this wasn’t to be necessary for at that moment the door to his room was thrown open.

  “Why, William – ”

  The speaker, a well-dressed man in middle-age, stopped when he realized that Sadler was not alone.

  “It is all right, Ralph. Master Revill is about to go,” said Sadler standing up so quickly that he knocked his stool over and slopped drink out of his glass.

  The newcomer just about acknowledged my presence but it was plain that he was waiting for me to leave.

  I thanked William Sadler for his hospitality.

  “When do you perform next, Nicholas?”

  “In two afternoons’ time we are putting on Romeo and Juliet for the townspeople.”

  “This is our Romeo and Juliet?”

  “There’s only one of them.”

  “Who is playing me?” said William Sadler.

  “Dick Burbage, though he has a few years on you.”

  “A handsome fellow?”

  “A fine player.”

  “Ha. It’s the same thing, I dare say.”

  Again, I couldn’t tell whether Sadler was mocking the whole business or whether his vanity was pricked by the notion of his situation, or that of his family, being presented on stage. Except that, according to his own account, it wasn’t really his situation in the first place.

  The visitor had said nothing all this while but stood waiting impatiently. For a second time I bade Sadler farewell and groped my way down the dark staircase. Once outside in the great quadrangle of Christ Church I waited for my eyes to grow used to the dark before heading to the right towards the postern gate. The stars were out and there was a crispness to the air. The city bells were all silent now.

  I thought about the encounter with William Sadler. He was quite an arrogant fellow, but more indifferent than arrogant. Not exactly unpleasant. He had, after all, preserved me from possible danger on the streets. And he had responded with good humour to being beaten over the head by Mistress Root. Perhaps there was no great harm in him.

  Concerning the other individual, the one who’d burst into the room, I was not so sure. I’d only had a glimpse of him in the candlelight but he was an imposing presence. He had bulbous eyes like a bullock’s, and a jowly face to go with them. Was he a tutor to Sadler? He looked too well heeled, though, with his ermine hat and Spanish cloak. But then, as I’ve said, my notions of academic simplicity were rapidly being dispelled.

  I walked up towards Carfax and then on to the Golden Cross. There was little sign of the battle which had raged over this spot barely an hour earlier. A few loiterers in the streets, and some squashy matter underfoot. I reflected on the automatic hostility between students and townspeople. They were all dry tinder, actively seeking for a spark. Because the play was on my mind I could not help recalling the hatred of the Montagues and the Capulets, so deeply embedded in each family that neither side knew – or cared – how the whole bad business had started.

  I regained my inn and found my fellows in high spirits. None of them had taken part in the Cornmarket skirmish but most of them had been, like me, onlookers. For once there could be no question of any players being blamed for stirring up trouble. There was some amusement at the fact that university students could be so similar to the London apprentices – that is, easily given to riot. We’re generally gratified to find that those with brains are just as capable of behaving foolishly as those who lack them. More foolishly sometimes, as though they have a point to make. If I thought I came hot-foot with news of how this particular riot began (William Sadler’s tale of sour wine and a sourer tavern-keeper) it was merely to discover that there were at least half a dozen versions in circulation of how it had all started.

  It was only as I was dropping off to sleep after this eventful day that I remembered my conversation with Susan Constant. Perhaps I had deliberately driven her strange appeal out of my mind, realizing that there wasn’t really much I could do to help her. Even if she was correct in her belief that her cousin Sarah was being slowly poisoned how could I be expected to point a finger at the poisoner? I regretted that I’d said yes, a kind of half-hearted yes, to what she’d asked.

  I witnessed an odd scene the next morning which I include here only because of what followed from it.

  It was a fine morning. Like a butterfly in the sun, I was stretching my wings outside the yard of the Golden Cross Inn – there is something about this city of Oxford which seems to encourage hanging about – when my ears were seized by shouts and screeches close to. The source of the screeching was a woman standing next to a cart which was at the entrance to the Tavern on my immediate left. A wooden crate had fallen from the back of the cart on to the dirty road and, although it looked undamaged, this minor accident had been sufficient to provoke the woman into railing at the carter.

  I recognized the carter by his horse, a clapped-out piebald nag.

  He was the unfortunate John Hoby, the driver who had run down Mistress Root on the road from Headington and been roundly abused for his clumsiness. This expert in offending women sat on his perch, hapless and hangdog. I recognized him also by the wen that hung from his neck. Although he was, strictly speaking, higher up above the ground than the woman who was giving him a tongue-lashing he seemed on a lower level than her, if you know what I mean.

  I recognized the woman also. It was Jane Davenant, the gypsy-like wife of the owner of the Tavern. She who was known to everyone in Oxford and who played at fast-and-loose, according to the ostler Kit Kite. She who might cuckold her husband, according to William Sadler’s finger horn gesture. Such women are always interesting, even when they are unpleasing to the eye – this was my rather worldly reflection – and Mistress Davenant was not unpleasing.

  She didn’t seem to mind that her ranting was drawing the attention of everyone at the lower end of Cornmarket, of idlers like myself, of stall-holders and students. She was probably enjoying it, since she shook her splayed fingers at John Hoby and wagged her fine, dark head of hair with an almost theatrical emphasis. From time to time odd phrases – “shotten herring!”, “sad man” – emerged from the welter of abuse being poured over the carter. I was surprised that a woman such as Jane Davenant could sound like a fish-wife but perhaps it was part of her diverse charms.

  The appearance of John Davenant on the scene did not a
ffect her one jot. The landlord and husband looked gloomy, as usual. He put a restraining hand on his wife’s arm but she shook it off unawares, as you might a fly’s touch, and continued her ranting. So he stood by with folded arms, as if he was used to her fits, and waited for her to exhaust herself. Meantime the carter sat still as a mouse faced by a cat.

  In the end Davenant made to pick up the fallen box himself but it was evidently too awkward for him to shift alone. He went round to the other side of the cart and tugged at the carter’s sleeve so that the little man almost fell into his arms. Then together they hefted the box and carried it into the inn yard. His wife stopped her shouting and looked around at her scattered audience. I caught her eye but could not hold her gaze. Then she too went inside, although not before kicking out a stray dog that was creeping along close to the wall. I supposed that if she couldn’t kick Hoby, then the next best thing was a vagrant cur.

  After a short time Hoby emerged warily, as if he expected a fresh attack. He remounted his cart and urged his ancient nag towards the High Street. Having nothing better to do, I watched his departure and wondered what had been contained in the box that was too heavy for one man to carry.

  *see Alms for Oblivion

  Friar’s Cap

  There is a willow grows aslant the stream.

  Well, there are many willows in this place, and a multitude of streams. During the winter the water rises here, and in midwinter the whole plain freezes over sometimes. But now we are on the edge of spring and there is an unaccustomed gentleness to the late afternoon air as it tilts towards evening. The tips of the branches are spotted with green and the birds are swooping low among the trees. The sound of the church bells, ferried across from the town, blooms in your ear.

  Across this watery landscape run several tracks which are passable provided it has not rained recently. Some of them are like causeways, with pools and streams of water on either side. If conditions are good, these tracks provide a quicker route to the outlying villages of the town than the main road. But there are never many people travelling on these by-roads.